The Dalai Lama. Finished 9-30-19, 4/5 stars, 122 pages, pub. 2007

The Dalai Lama: His Essential Wisdom is a collection of hundreds of inspiring quotations from His Holiness. The selections are drawn largely from his writings, teachings, interviews, speeches, and other statements made during the course of his more than forty-eight years as the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetan people.

In these excerpts, the Dalai Lama reflects with wisdom that is both profound and down to earth upon the need for compassion and kindness, the search for happiness, the way to peace, the meaning of pain and suffering, the role of religion, the power of meditation, and the challenges of life in the modern world. In other selections, His Holiness recalls his singular childhood and the turmoil surrounding the Communist takeover of Tibet.

Brimming with warmth, humor, and practical advice, the selections gathered here powerfully illuminate why His Holiness the Dalai Lama is beloved the world over for his timeless wisdom for all humanity.   from Goodreads

The book starts with a four page introduction, which introduced the the contextual history of this, the 14th Dalai Lama.  The last few pages are the chronology of the man through 2006, when the book went to print.  The bulk of the book are chapters (compassion, love, kindness & friendship, happiness, environment…) full of his own words taken from his speeches or writings.  The first few chapters are about the teachings of Buddhism and his own path to being the leader.  Many places in the book he talks about the responsibility he feels for Tibet, his home that he cannot return to because of the Chinese government.  There is a lot of wisdom here and I enjoyed it very much.  If only enlightenment could be found in a book we’d all be better off, but this is the next best thing.  I look forward to picking it up again in the future.  Highly recommended.